Defending champ Jacobson leads Travelers

CROMWELL, Connecticut -- Defending champion Fredrik Jacobson shot a 4-under 66 on Friday to take a one-stroke lead in the suspended second round of the Travelers Championship.

The Swede had a 9-under 131 total. He's trying to join Phil Mickelson, the 2001 and 2002 winner, as the only players to successfully defend a title at River Highlands.

"I would imagine if I could stay in the thick of things coming down Sunday, the better the memories you have, the more you can feed off of it," Jacobson said.

Charley Hoffman opened with a par and birdied the next five holes to move within a stroke of the lead before rain suspended play for the day. Nathan Green also was 8 under when the horn blew at 3:19 p.m. He finished nine holes.

It was the second weather delay of the day. The first lasted 70 minutes.

Jacobson played before the rain hit the course. He started on the back nine and followed up two birdies with an eagle on the 13th hole. He hit his second shot 240 yards over the water and onto the green, and made a 40-foot putt on the par 5.

He also was 9 under after 36 holes last year en route to his first PGA Tour victory.

"It's going to be tough to drive it the way I did the last two rounds last year, where I didn't miss the fairway," Jacobson said. "So, I'm not going to chase that. But yeah, probably I have been playing about the same as I did the first couple days of last year."

Blake Adams had a 64, the best round of the day, to join Stuart Appleby and Roland Thatcher at 7 under. Appleby had a 65, and Thatcher shot a 67.

Adams had five birdies on the back nine.

"I think I finally woke up," said Adams, who bogeyed the final two in the first round for a 69. "I was just kind of making some silly bogeys all day yesterday and early this morning, and I finally got rid of those silly errors and made some birdies."

Appleby, who has played 13 tournaments and missed eight cuts this season, had seven birdies in shooting his best round of the year.

"I'm thinking better, I'm getting better," Appleby said. "I wasn't hitting it any good and I wasn't thinking any good and I was just really finding it hard."

First-round leader David Mathis fell back to 3 under with a 73 that included a double bogey at 16, where he need three putts on the par 3 hole, and a bogey on 17.

Vijay Singh had one of the tougher finishes Friday. He was looking at a 40-foot birdie putt on 18 to finish at 3 under. But he hit that past the hole and then missed a 2 1/2-foot putt for par. He was 1 under, just above the projected cut line.